Sound Field

- Some people in the Stapleton neighborhood say what's happening over at Dick's Sporting Goods Park is not music to their ears.

They say that two day Bassnectar concert literally rattled their homes late into the night.

- At one point dubstep was so big that Colorado residents thought a nearby Bassnectar concert was an earthquake.

- Thought it was an earthquake.

I went outside and I looked, and realized it was bass.

- We have to be neighbors and we have to be friendly neighbors.

This was not a friendly event.

- Dubstep shook the landscape of music in the early 2010s, but its viral success was followed by its viral disappearance.

I'm gonna try to make my own dubstep track, but first let's find out where dubstep came from and why it disappeared.

The history of dubstep starts in the UK garage music scene of the 90s.

UK garage music came from house music.

And features a four-on-the-floor bass drum pattern and syncopated high hats and snares.

In my dream you and I are holding there DJs took the syncopation in garage a step further with a sub-genre called 2-step.

In 1999 music journalist Simon Reynolds described 2-step as, a general rubric for all kinds of jittery irregular rhythms that don't conform to garage's traditional four-to-the-floor pulse.

Essentially, 2-step skipped over some of the four-on-the-floor bass drum pattern and added other shuffle percussion to create a more erratic feel.

Check out the off-kilter pulse in this 2-step remix featuring the singer Sia.

If they fall away I'll stay with you Do as I say Not as I do So 2-step is where the step in dubstep comes from.

But what about the dub?

Dub originated in Jamaica in the late 60s.

Artists like King Tubby reworked reggae instrumentals making drums the focus of the tracks, by raising the reverb, delay, and bass.

I never, I never never heard I never heard I never heard just some people No, no Now hold on.

Before you get angry in the comments, I'm not saying dubstep came from Jamaica.

But the way dub artists altered reggae instrumentals in the 60s inspired DJs in the late 90s to rework 2-step tracks, creating dubstep.

As dubstep pioneer Kode9 told Vice, the name made sense.

There were aspects of dub that influenced dubstep.

The most important was playing the instrumental versions of vocal garage tracks, which was a little like what dub was to reggae.

The second was dub as a methodology, manipulating sound to create impossible sonic spaces using reverb, echo, and such.

This early dubstep was more minimal than the dubstep we know today.

But this minimalism provided room for variation in the future.

Check out this early dubstep track by Burial, an artist on Kode9's record label, Hyperdub.

Holding you Couldn't be alone Couldn't be alone Loving you A breakthrough in dubstep came in the early 2000s thanks to two teenage DJs from England, Skream and Benga.

Along with other London producers they departed from the dark sound of early dubstep by incorporating elements of reggae, house, funk, and hip hop.

(electronic music) This more melodic sound found an audience outside of London.

And with the help of online forums, spread around the world.

The main ingredients are syncopated rhythms with a tempo between 138 and 142 BPM, a kick on the one, and a clap or snare on the three.

But the defining ingredient is that wobbling bassline.

(electronic music) The wobble effect is usually created by modulating the bassline with a low frequency oscillator, or LFO.

- [Instructor] So now that we got one brought up-- - I'm the original YouTube student.

- Go ahead and create the dubstep wobble thumbscratch so we can use one of-- - Look at that, I'm right here.

And what he do?

He did this one.

(buzzing) Y'all bear with me, don't trip 'cause we about to get it.

- [Announcer] 20 minutes later.

(buzzing) Ooh.

Listen for the wobbling bassline in the song Midnight Request Line by Skream.

(electronic music) By 2009, dubstep had taken hold in the United States.

And artists like Skrillex and Bassnectar were creating their own versions of the genre by putting an emphasis on the buildup and the bass drop.

The bass drop consists of dropping out all percussion until near silence and then resuming the song with a heavy sub bass wobble.

- Oh my god!

(electronic music) - This new version of dubstep earned the mocking term brostep due to its more aggressive fist-bumping sound.

What was once the soundtrack for illegal raves in London was now being played in halftime shows and in cereal commercials.

(electronic music) - [Announcer] New Weetabix Chocolate Spoonsize.

- Dubstep found its star moment in 2012 when Skrillex won three awards at the Grammys.

- Hi, Sonny Moore, Skrillex.

This is really crazy for me man.

Just a year and a half ago I was making that song in my bedroom.

- Soon after, pop heavyweights like Justin Bieber and Britney Spears began to include more electronic sound in their work as dubstep merged deeper into the mainstream.

As long as you la la la la La la la la la La la la la la The DIY element of electronic music in the early 2010s made it accessible, but it also drew criticism from music purists.

Computer programs like Ableton with its presets and plugins allowed anyone with a laptop to produce electronic music.

Websites like Dubstepforum, where audio programs were shared and pirated, helped amateurs break into the genre at a professional level.

Eventually artists reacted against the in your face sound of dubstep.

The extreme nature of the music that originally made it appealing might be what pushed fans away.

By 2013, dubstep started to break into other genres.

Post-dubstep artists, such as James Blake and Mount Kimbie, emerged as early as 2011.

And featured songs with a slowed down tempo in the range of 130 beats per minute.

That you will ever know The limitations of a clone They kept me on my throne By 2016 the popularity of dubstep had declined.

But it didn't disappear, it just transformed.

Dubstep mixed with Atlanta trap to create EDM trap, which is still popular today.

Other spinoff genres include filth, glitch, halfstep, chillstep, deathstep, and drumstep.

Even the pioneers of dubstep began to distance themselves from the genre.

Around 2012, Skream began playing music that was more informed by house, disco, and techno.

(electronic music) (buzzing) I need it to be better than that though.

It gotta be like.

- [Instructor] And we're gonna move this down to the sine wave.

And we're gonna hit control click over it.

Select number 14.

- Ooh, what you talking about?

- [Announcer] Two hours later.

- This the bassline right here.

(singing) It's a sliding bassline.

Like this right here.

(buzzing) That's the bassline.

And then the melody would be this.

(buzzing and beeping) I took different elements of dubstep, different ingredients from the list that we said earlier, and I just made it my own.

I put it at 140 bpm, I used the wobble bassline, but I used it in the beginning, not in the ending.

Made the wobble a part of the buildup, drop out, and then the full instrumentation at the end.

I think it's a cool switch.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

(electronic music) That's tough.

(singing)